The Laboratory Department at Chester River Hospital Center, in partnership with LabCorp, Laboratory Corporation of America, will be sponsoring an educational presentation about Lyme Disease on Wednesday, April 17th from 3:00-4:00 p.m. in the Chester River Hospital Conference Center and then from 5:00-6:00 p.m. at Chester River Manor Nursing & Rehabilitation, both in Chestertown. This presentation, “Lyme Disease Redux” will be given by Barbara A. Brody, PhD, Associate Vice President and National Director, Microbiology, Special Microbiology, Esoteric Immunology/Serology, Kidney Stone Analysis and Routine Virology with LabCorp.
Dr. Brody, a diplomat of the American Board of Medical and Molecular Microbiology since 1985, received her PhD from the University of Kentucky and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in infectious disease at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. She completed a clinical postdoctoral fellowship in clinical and public health microbiology at the Medical College of Virginia. While at LabCorp, Dr. Brody has directed the microbiology, virology, reference microbiology, molecular microbiology, infectious disease, and autoimmune immunology, HIV-hepatitis serology, cell immunology and kidney stone programs. She is a member of the Board of the American College of Microbiology and has served on special emphasis review panels for the National Institutes of Health.
“Lyme Disease Redux,” which will be open to health professionals and members of the local community, will discuss prevention, diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease in addition to other tick-borne diseases and exposure risks.
For more information about “Lyme Disease Redux” or to RSVP for the presentation, please contact Alicia Dodd at 410-778-7668, extension 2600. This event is free and open to the public. Seating is limited, so please RSVP. Light refreshments will be served. Chester River Hospital Conference Center is located on the 2nd floor, 100 Brown Street, Chestertown, MD. Chester River Manor is located on 200 Morgnec Road, Chestertown, MD.
Lucy Barnes says
Sorry to say the information presented in this program, along with most of the slides, were terribly outdated (some almost 2 decades old). Inaccurate statements were many, making this presentation dangerous rather than helpful. The theme was the old, long disproven theory that Lyme disease is “easy to diagnose and easy to treat” even in the late stages. Especially dangerous was the advise that short term treatment provides a cure, and if someone remains ill after 7-10 days of antibiotics they don’t have Lyme, but chronic fatigue syndrome or perhaps fibromyalgia and should be treated as such. No information was offered on other increasingly found tick borne diseases, a noted disappointment to those attending. It is hoped the Chester River Hospital Center staff will first educate themselves about Lyme disease, and be sure they are presenting updated, accurate information if they attempt to educate anyone on this topic in the future.
Kevin Shertz says
Lucy,
I was diagnosed with Lyme in 2010. A really bad case.
Chestertown Doctor John Arrabal, my physician (and has admittance privileges at the hospital, or at least had them at the time), immediately identified what was going on and directed a course of treatment.
I spent a month with a PICC line as my treatment (I’ll spare people a web link with images, and just tell you it’s basically a tube that is inserted from your forearm within a vein directly into your heart from which they are able to administer medicine.) This daily, month-long treatment, was followed by several weeks of Doxycyclene Hyclate, which I was able to administer on my own.
The staff at the hospital that I saw on a daily basis was thorough, informed, and made what was a very scary episode in my life completely bearable. When you’re being treated in the same space as terminal cancer patients, it helps put things in perspective for you in a hurry. Heck, my daily appointments coincided with lunch, and I was given my choice of different puddings.
Perhaps the quality of care at Chester River Hospital has fallen in the past few years, but I can only present my current condition from the one they received me with at the outset: they probably saved my life.